The tallest building between 2004-2007 Taipei's Financial Center Corp (TFC) is now also looking to become the world's tallest green building. The 101 floors structure will get its new looks in the next 18-month with a $1,9 million investment. TFC will primarily get new heating, cooling and ventilation system upgrades.
A San Jose, California based company called Solexant has started the development of a thin film solar cell which is cheap and very efficient. Solexant is very confident that their serial production thin film solar cell will have and efficiency increase of 10% compared to silicon based cells.
CalTech scientists have discovered that arranging vertical axis wind turbines (VAWT) in a certain pattern will save the space by 100 times compared to classic arrangements, will output the same amount of energy and will be safer for migrating birds.
After announcing the company's plan to become Japan's largest solar manufacturer and one of the top players in the domestic solar industry, Sanyo claimed that it has developed a new type of flexible solar cell that is thinner than a human hair.
We have been talking about liquid batteries back in March, when an MIT announcement stated that they invented one that could store much more than regular batteries can in a simpler and fashionable way by using liquid metals and liquid electrolyte in the middle.
Cladophora is the name of an alga that could be the key to a new revolution in energy storage systems... and not just any storage, but batteries so thin you would have them printed on a paper and charged in about 11 seconds, with net superior capacities above anything that exists on the market.
Coral shaped nanomaterials could help scientists make more efficient solar cells. A team of chinese researchers, led by Jinhuai Liu at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, changed the structure of tin oxide to serve various purposes in solar cells, batteries, gas sensors and other devices.
While some green projects store the excess energy in a kinetic form, such as the fore-mentioned flywheels, others are inventing ways to use frozen water to collect surpluses from wind farms, which are more productive at night, when winds are stronger.
The process, called osmotic power, is a harvesting the energy that appears when salt water and fresh water meet through an osmotic filter. For the moment, the project is small-scale but could prove the great potential of osmotic energy.
An article published last week by a group of health and environmental protection organizations stated that since 1996 till today, the U.S. farmers have increased dramatically the use of genetically engineered corn, soybeans and cotton.
